well it would to some extent depend on the type of governmental system setup by your and other survivor groups. that would end up setting the standard for the growth of civilization. if you have a situation where one person makes all the calls and has everyone else just do as they are told that would probably evolve into a kingship or dictatorship in a few generations if the child of the leader is charismatic or forceful enough. If you have a group that follows a leader but had democratic rules set up by them all might evolve into a form of democracy, though that basic structure would need major fine tuning the larger the society got.

as for the life style i think that most of the survivors would probably have farm lifestyle focusing more on growing of food more so than animals unless they were lucky enough to have a good defensible location with livestock. and if they were able to provide the livestock with food than they would have a much better though slightly more complex life style than those that only had a planting farm. depending on the locations, if you have a well fortified section of a city, they would have a harder time finding locations for farming and for grazing for animals in their defensive lines.

We can see what happens when third world nations face disasters, or how our own countries did in past times. Now it's based on an assumption that the apocalypse was uniformous, no nation being up much faster than another, so it's an aid-free/colonialism-free scenario, and where no stable despotic government forms (which would be possible too):

For the first years, we can expect epidemics, famine, wars, criminality.

Then as a social structure begins to reform, corruption, more organised crime, a very steep social ladder with haves and have-nots and nothing we could call a middle-class. The orphans who don't plain starve to death end up doing the crappiest jobs instead of getting an education. Many adults are barely capable of functioning from physical or mental damage. (contrarily to televisual wisdom, PTSD makes you weaker)The lack of certain expertise becomes apparent - in this city no doctor survived, in that one nobody can properly fix a car... some jobs remain unfulfilled, while the unqualified face dramatic unemployment as the economy has to be rebuilt from nothing.Political factions fight for power. Because a crisis favours extremists, the government is probably formed by ideologues who dismiss reality to apply theories regardless of results, and opportunists sucking up to them for benefits.

Second generation is poorly educated, weak from childhood infections and food carencies, and cynical enough to accept injustice as the norm. Real society-rebuilding work is being done, but the apparent progress is slow.Superstition is omnipresent, either through organised religion or harmless local beliefs.Political factions continue fighting, but as long as it doesn't turn into a civil war the people isn't too concerned. Opportunists cannibalise the ideologues and only keep the few needed for their demagogic needs. Opportunists are selfish but capable of common sense, they know that a hungry people is too likely to chop their head off. Basic infrastructure and services are gradually restored. Law enforcement and tax collection become necessary, anyone wishing to be in power must find a way to restore them.The economy is chaotic but globally working; active rebuilding effort greatly reduces unemployment.

Third generation and onward regained enough ground to live close to normal. The richer have enough spare time to dig up books and reconquer the technologies that had to be done without. Mass production happens again. People begin to expect better from governments, then from the system. Some things are still different, but civilisation is back on its tracks and can continue onward. Scholars study the apocalypse and what it changed in society, but the majority find that a futile science and wish their tax money went on something more down to earth.

In the pre-end of the infection days one of my main goals was to continue some form of eductaional system. (yeah, you don't really think your getting outta school do you you little booger eats?).

Though I think in the post infection days we would prolly stay in out small survival bands. But still try to regain whats been lost. Farming will prolly become a major industry, aswell as livestock, and houseing.

I think we would take a second look at how we build our homes. Homes would prolly be multi level with the basement actully being above ground, and the first floor being reached by steps. I don't think anyone here would really belive it was totally over.

There is a strong likelihood that humanity could recover quickly for the zombie outbreak as opposed to slowly barring any number of factors including the actions by individuals during the epidemic itself. If some governments resort to saturation bombing of urban areas or tactical nuclear devices then we could be in for a whole lot more then gangs and highway robbery. Things like nuclear winter will push humanity to the very brink of extinction and may even fundamentally change us from a biological perspective. There will also be those who will raise the flag of freedom and autonomy as opposed to governing rule. The closest we will see for a long time of any form of government will be individual city-states, trying to build some sort of existence for themselves. The values and systems in these communities could vary widely. Some may encourage people to visit and barter while other could shoot travellers on site.

We also have to think about the resource distribution prior to the epidemic. As individual communities come out into the open it will quickly become apparent who has a lot of what and how well they will be able to protect that from everyone else in this world of haves and have-nots. The possibility of communities remaining in hiding for fear of attack or overpopulation is a large one that even books like the Zombie Survival Guide speak about. There is also the possibility that the remnants of our government could come up for any number of underground installations with their treasure trove of stockpiled technology and skills. Will these ones be willing to follow the rules of the past when the politicians we have now do not?

Logged

"Reason has always existed but not always in a reasonable form." -Karl Marx

Hmm... well those situations also depend on the scale of the epidemic.Mine probably wouldn't happen with fewer than 10% of survivors, while yours wouldn't work with more than that.Eh, we don't even have the same apocalypse in mind!

Think I said this before but I'll say it again:Technology would regain vacuum tube/valve levels within a decade or two. Why? It's already been discovered so short of complete i.e. back to the Stone Age collapse there would at least be steam engines. The dynamo is 19th Century technology and scavenging copper wire and magnets shouldn't be too hard after The Fall Of The Zeds so electricity (even in limited amounts) shouldn't be too hard. Same for radio (the old "Cat's Whisker" crystal set variety I mean that were even surreptitiously made in WWII POW camps). Microchips would take a lot longer due to infrastructure needs but a circa 1940s level of tech with time and basic knowledge could be achieved at least in pockets. As to motorised transport it's diesel engines all the way. The original diesel engine was developed by a peanut farmer to run on peanut oil so if a source of oil such as olive, hemp, grape seed or fish can be found then away you go. Hell build a moonshine plant and use ethanol or methanol (aka wood alcohol). As for flight: same deal though maybe powered gliders would be the most practical solution medium term.Way I see it the knowledge isn't too specialised for any reasonably (high school?) educated group.Heavy industry and pharmaceuticals on the other hand will be, as we say in the West of Scotland, "Tonka'd".

*ERRATA*Tonka'd is rhyming slang from "Tonka truck". Think you can guess what it means.

I agree with Opus Fluke in regards to technology. even if you had network devices hoarded, and solar panels to power your tech, there wouldn't be a server for anyone to access. If the servers don't have power, then everything is offline.

I've also think trying to reverse engineer something as complicated as a PDA or phone wouldn't work, one would simply not have the facilities to make any of those things possible.

I think personally it will be the people that learned how to not only produce their own food or hunt it, but people that can identify what in the area's surrounding them are edible. Also the ability to make fire and use it to best suit what you need done will also help, I mean I have family that wouldn't be able to start a BBQ without lighter fluid and matches, what good will it do you to catch a rabbit or hare if you can't cook it?

It really depends on how long the outbreak lasted I think. If it was resolved in within 2 decades and with the human population only loosing 1/3 (any 1/3) to maybe 1/2 (if certain regions, demographics made up the 1/2) the recovery would quick. The adult population would focus on the event for the rest of thier life, they wold work to advanaced ages rebuilding and since their numbers would be fairly low taking care of them when they age wouldn't burden the global economy too much. The nex generation would be vigilant and instilled with the lessons learned. The generation after that would be questioning and counter culture to their parents and excelerate growth in areas being neglected. After that it would likely be back to mostly normal.

Cremation would be the norm, especially if it was a "dead rise from grave" zombie outbreak instead of an infection.

If The population loss was greater and the outbreak lasted multiple generations I see going more the way that Dodom described. I do also think that the longer an outbreaks last, the less likely humans would be to end it.

In "The Road" the population had fallen to very low levels and the planet couldn't support enough food production. A zombie outbreak alone shouldn't alter the climate to the point of not sustaining human civilization. But as mentioned before, we all may have different details about an apocolypse.

What we should do is have a set of scenario threads for a post collapse, each one stating percentage of population surviving, areas of the world most affected (high/low population density), time scale since ending of the threat, prevalence of various resources etc at the start so we can compose outcomes from a common origin....Damn, I've been thinking about this a little too much.

Well I don't think that even if the urban centres are completely abandoned that they will be worthless. What about a Land of the Dead scenario where humanity seals itself inside of a portion of the city and does manage to maintain access to some of its anemities? If the cities are still there, eventually humans can restart the generators and bring back the cities without having to "re-discover" technology. We also have to think about the effects of global warming if your willing to debate that. In a total end game scenario all of our CO2 producing ventures would cease. Is this in time for the planet to reverse the process? Will we be forced the deal with very extreme weather with limited supplies in the first couple years after collapse before the planet actually begins to show recovery?

For that matter let's ask ourselves about nature reclaiming the cities. I would venture a lot of places would be reclaimed by nature even in the first decade...

*sigh* Its an endless conversation that could change based on basic variables like where the outbreak occurred.

Logged

"Reason has always existed but not always in a reasonable form." -Karl Marx